The Universal Law of Gravitation
by plague masks
Summary: "Nico," says Bianca's voice from the doorway, "this is Rachel; she's a transfer. I found her wandering around downstairs, poor dude. she'll be rooming with you, 'kay?"


the universal law of gravitation

* * *

Here's how things go:

Nico diAngelo is no longer a football player when he trips over the other team's linebacker and the crack of his tibia can be heard throughout the entire stadium.

They tell him, "_it's just too bad, he'd been doing so wonderfully, that there'll always be next year and until then he needs to rest up, let his leg heal._" Nico spends the next three days stuck in a tiny dorm room bed, bored enough to shoot either himself or his sister, who has decided that Taking Care of Nico diAngelo is the next best thing to saving baby pandas, or whatever crazy cause Bianca was up to a week ago, and who will probably drop said cause in three days and go con a freshman or some transfer student into sharing room B7 with a "boring, grumpy, irrational _asshat_ of a brother".

Bianca lasts a week.

* * *

"Nico," says Bianca's voice from the doorway, "this is Rachel; she's a transfer. I found her wandering around downstairs, poor dude. she'll be rooming with you, 'kay?" He looks up from his history textbook, feeling a little bit shocked and a little bit betrayed and all the while thinking _was I really that bad?_, to find that a pair of the biggest green eyes he's ever seen are narrowed and glaring at him.

The feeling in his stomach tells him that either a) the world has tipped over and shifted on its axis or b) his pain meds are really, really strong. He honestly hopes that it's scenario B.

* * *

Rachel hates him; that much is clear. And it's fine, really. Nico can deal with it. He doesn't like talking very much anyways, all of Bianca's pointed hints about being an "anti-social loser of a brother" aside. Honestly, he didn't even ask for a new roommate, didn't— _doesn't— _need one, and really, Rachel should just leave if she wants toand he couldn't give a rat's ass. He didn't need anyone taking care of him.

Nothing really changes between them, not the silence or the sheer resentment, until Bianca decides to _meddle_, because if you look up Conniving Bitch in the dictionary, Nico is pretty sure that it's Bianca's face that's grinning up über-obnoxiously at you.

So Bianca calls Nico on a Friday night in the middle of November, laughing breathlessly into the cell, and says, "Put Rachel on the phone, won't you, my beloved asshat of a brother?"

Nico hands the phone to Rachel silently; She takes it and walks towards the doorway, his voice very quiet and low. He hasn't had the opportunity to listen to Rachel talk, considering the unofficial law of silence in their room, but he finds out via eavesdropping on the conversation that Rachel has a pretty nice voice, even if she won't use it to actually talk to Nico at all or anything and they are kind of the worst roommates ever, really.

Rachel hangs up, sliding the phone shut with a little click and throwing it back at Nico. Shrugging on a coat, she says, "Bianca's invited us to go to the club for a couple of drinks. We're both supposed to go." She fiddles with the sleeve of one of her many paint-splattered shirts, pulling a thread out here and there.

"All right." At this, Rachel turns a bit, and Nico is vaguely aware that he startled her, but more aware of the fact that his leg is trying to collapse on him and his crutch is leaning against the wardrobe. For a moment, he grabs onto the bedpost—his leg is trembling a lot; seriously, that linebacker can _go to fucking hell_– and then he finds that his crutch is being shoved under his nose, and that Rachel still isn't looking at him.

"Here."

Nico takes it, and for just a second, they make eye contact. Now that he has a chance to look at him, he finds that Rachel's eyes are ridiculously green.

"Let's go." And with that, Rachel shoves open the door, barely holding it open for Nico to stumble through, and Nico now knows that the Black-Eyed Peas were a sorry sack of liars, because tonight is most definitely _not_ going to be a good night.

* * *

There's some Asian girl whose trying to flirt with Nico – she would be full out seducing him, if it weren't for the fact that she's had enough to drink to make her fall over if Nico tapped her on the shoulder – and somehow, Nico knows that it's Bianca's fault. It has to be, because otherwise Nico wouldn't be here; he'd be home, reading his history textbook and getting a head start on his physics work about Newton's law of gravitation and— sure— moping a little, but that's perfectly understandable when your tibia's broken and you won't play football until next year, which will be your last year, and you may not be quarterback— and seriously, that linebacker can go to hell and roast for eternity.

Said linebacker is actually over in the corner of the club by the bar. It takes a considerable effort for Nico to not either a) go over there and punch the damn guy in the fucking face, maybe break his nose and see how he likes it or b) slam his head on the table, because Nico's life pretty much goes like this now: suck.

The Asian, who is getting closer and closer to actually sitting in Nico's lap, smiles at him. "You're the football player, right? The quarterback?"

"Yeah."

"I heard about your leg. Sucks, don't it?"

Yes, yes it does. "Yeah."

"We-ell," she draws the word out, sing-song-like, and now she actually _is_ in his lap, "now you have time for other stuff, you know?" She giggles— as in really, truly giggles; Nico didn't realize that girls actually did that sort of thing— and she's draping her arm around his shoulder and pulling on his wrist to write her number on his skin with a ballpoint pen. "My name's Drew. If you need someone to spend that free time with –"

"Right, I don't, actually, but, uh –"

"What, got someone else on your mind?" Drew looks him in the face, examining his eyes and at some point Nico will have to kill Bianca, blood relation be damned. "You do, don't you."

"No – I mean yes – wait, no –"

"Oh, it's okay." She grins at him, slow and cheerful, full of drunken innocence and she's got this all wrong, but Nico can't seem to find the words to say so. "We'll just be friends then. I've always wanted a huge, muscular man-friend to carry all my shit around. I'll call you up some time, 'kay?"

With a slide she's out of his lap, swallowed up by other dancers, and after a while, he stops looking for her, and starts looking for Rachel.

He sees her over by the bar, with some guy from the team who's only on varsity because of Daddy's money, Luke something-or-other. Luke is leaning over Rachel, who looks like she'd like to take a bottle to Luke's face in the next twenty seconds, so Nico gets up and starts walking over slowly, leaning on his crutches as he goes and hoping that maybe this'll just be that sort of quiet disagreement where nobody gets shat on, if he's lucky.

Nico's never been all that lucky, but he'd like to think otherwise.

"Look, you think just cause you're some poor scholarship kid that you can get privileges and shit?" Luke is that annoyingly aggressive sort of drunk – Nico remembers that much from post-game parties a year ago – and is sneering away, which just makes him even more pathetic.

Rachel still looks like she would grab a bottle and break it on Luke's face if it weren't for the _no disciplinary incidents_ clause in her stupid art scholarship, but instead is mumbling something under her breath.

"What's that? Gonna to run off and tell somebody 'bout this?"

Rachel's gaze keeps shifting as she presses back against the wall, mumbling a little more, but Luke just leans in further, slamming one hand on the wall above Rachel's head and swirling a beer bottle with the other. "That's right, scholarship gal. Nobody's got your back around here. Now piss off."

"Trouble, ladies?"

As soon as he says it, Nico regrets it— he just wants to go home, get off his leg, sleep— but something in Rachel's face looks almostrelievedandalittlebithopeful despite herself, and at least now Luke is focusing his bleary eyes in Nico's direction.

"I was just teaching scholarship gal here a good lesson, diAngelo. You got some sort of problem with him too?"

"Yeah, well," says Nico, and fuck it, why is his mouth suddenly out of control, "my problem is more with you, you cowardly asshole."

Luke is stuttering and swearing and turning bright red and blotchy, and Nico sees the beer bottle come swinging towards his face, but he somehow manages to dodge it and punch Luke square in the jaw.

Of course, there's then the matter of the bouncer coming over towards them and Nico pulling Rachel along because they need to leave, as in _right fucking now_, but when they stumble outside into the cool fall air, Rachel gives him the ghost of a grin and a "thank you". For some reason Nico doesn't really bother considering, that honestly makes the whole thing worth it.

* * *

"History is such a _bitch_."

Nico quite possibly has the biggest paper ever in the history of history papers due tomorrow, and there is not enough caffeine in the world capable of helping him stay awake or on task.

"Seriously, all the Romans and Greeks and leprechauns can go die in a fucking nuclear reactor or something."

At that point, Rachel comes over, resting her chin on Nico's shoulder and reading over the words on the screen and muttering a little under his breath. After a moment, she reaches over and pulls the laptop shut, grabbing Nico's arm before he can protest.

"Caffeine break."

"The fuck?"

"You look like you've been hit by godamn airplane, you'll probably be bitching about this paper less once you've had Starbucks, _and_ –" Rachel pulls out a wad of cash from her jacket pocket as if she's presenting Nico's letter to Hogwarts or a winning Lotto ticket, "Bianca gave me some money. Come on, time's a-wasting. I actually want to get some sort of sleep tonight."

"That is blatant bribery," Nico complains, but he stands up anyways, grabbing onto Rachel's shoulder a little for support.

"But it worked, didn't it?" Rachel is grinning at him. It's a very nice grin; she's even got dimples and everything, and Nico kind of wants to just stand there and appreciate the fact that Rachel doesn't hate him anymore – and yeah, Nico isn't entirely sure when or why Rachel decided to be friends with him (it was probably around the point where he punched Luke and got banned from the club for two weeks), but he's feeling pretty grateful for it right now.

"Yeah," Nico says, leaning on Rachel, just a little. "Yeah, it worked."

* * *

Nico wasn't expecting a visit from Grover Underwood. After he got kicked off the team (well, honorably discharged, but same difference), he wasn't really expecting to see any of his football friends until after the big game against the Legion.

But here Grover is, sitting across from him in a Starbucks close to the campus library while Rachel is off ordering drinks, a week before MLKJ Day.

"How's life treating you?" Grover was always the mature person on the team, the guy that everyone went to after Clarrise LaRue had a bad day, because he always told them that no, they weren't actually complete wastes of space, Clarrise is just a little bit touchy sometimes and lost the part of her brain that lets her think before she speaks. Really, Nico should've figured that Grover would want to see him, because even though Grover's the replacement QB, he _would_ say something like _you can't be replaced, Nico._

Nico's saved from answering Grover when Rachel comes back with coffee (drip for Grover, latte for Nico, some ridiculous iced thing full of sugar for her) and then leaves, holding up her buzzing phone as an explanation. They watch her until she goes out the door, when Grover turns back to his coffee and Nico looks over at the barista, who grins at him.

" – it's that Legion game that's going to kill us in March if we don't start working— are you listening to me at all?"

Nico turns back, startled; out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rachel outside, pulling on his scarf while muttering into her phone.

"Sorry, I was…"

"Totally out of it. Listen, Nico— if your leg heals up in time, you should try to come to practice. I mean— it might help, if you're there." Grover _looks_ at him, with his big, sad, brown eyes, and this really _is_ turning into an after-school special.

"Look, I— I'm not going to. Come back, I mean. I think it's better if I just… you know. Don't."

Nico keeps looking out the window as he talks. Rachel is still out there, fiddling with her scarf and her sleeves, always talking, but sometimes glancing back inside. At one point she sees Nico, smiles, waves a little.

"I get it," Grover says, and he's still got that _look_ in his eyes, but he smiles a little. "Don't worry."

Nico doesn't say anything, but looks down at the old wood table, and sips his coffee.

It burns his tongue.

* * *

"I," says Rachel, holding her arms out to whoever will listen (which is Nico, stuck on his bed with his history and physics textbooks instead of at the game), "am a _goddess_." She grins a little, looking down at Nico, her arms still spread wide.

He tries to smile back, stretching his lips and baring teeth. He doesn't quite manage.

Rachel sits down heavily on the bed, parking herself next to Nico before she starts bouncing up and down and Nico may have to hit Rachel with _A History of the Greek Mythology_— _that_ clocks in at 579 pages— best friends or not.

Nico doesn't hit Rachel, however, and she is then allowed to look at Nico with a face full of concern, or something else that's able to cause these weird little wrinkles between her (very, very green) eyes.

"Are you all right? I mean, normally you would be perfectly willing to learn about how I'm a goddess among mankind – an ass-kicking one, as it were, considering my perfect scores on my exams for the six million art classes I'm taking –"

"Congrats," Nico says, and means it, because it is not an over-exaggeration when Rachel says "six million art classes", it really is about _six million art classes_ and if it weren't for the fact that Nico's seen Rachel soaking wet he would call her a robot that had been bent on conquering the world but got side-tracked by foreign palates and old Van Goghs.

"Don't interrupt," Rachel hits him on the nose absent-mindedly, already moving on to her Main Point, "but you're unusually distracted-slash-totally out-of-it today. Explain."

"I… I don't know." Nico looks away, because Rachel still has this _concern_ in her face and Nico doesn't want to deal with this, doesn't know how to deal with this, and he can hear the game through the open window and everything just sort of hurts like a _fucking bitch_ right now.

"Cop-out. Try again." This time Rachel leans back, bracing her elbows on Nico's chest and evidently unaware that this is Nico's personal space that he's invading. "I'll even start it for you. Nico is not paying attention because…"

When Rachel looks over at Nico, grinning (and her eyes are sovery_green_), Nico forgets how to breathe. He tells himself it's because Rachel's leaning on him and _honestly_, anyone who was being leaned on by Rachel would be out of breath.

(Nico was always really, really good at lying to himself.)

"I'm just…tired, I guess." he says finally, not quite meeting Rachel's eyes but coming close enough, looking at his shoulders where one of her huge paint-covered T-shirts is fraying at the neck.

"Oh." For a moment Rachel looks a little bit disappointed, but she rallies, finally standing up— which makes Nico feel relieved, because Rachel is _hard pusher_, but some part of him is missing it, almost, and he looks back at his history textbook a little too quickly. "Well, I'm off to go and celebrate my awesomeness. Are you coming?"

"No," Nico says, "I've got to finish this stuff for history."

"Suit yourself. Just know that when you eventually become one with your bed, I'm going to immediately resort to chainsaws. Feel warned."

"I am warned."

Rachel smiles at him again while grabbing a jacket off the chair before turning to leave. Nico watches him until the door is shut.

(In the morning, Nico wakes up to a cup of coffee and a note: _Sorry you weren't able to play in that football game of yours. Even if it is totally stupid and pointless and all that._ He goes to class smiling.)

* * *

Rachel gets a boyfriend towards the end of October.

"His name is Percy," Nico enters the room while carrying the box marked _Random Shit_; across the room he sees Drew sitting on her ratty old couch and drinking some tea and making vague encouraging noises while mostly staring at the way Nico's arm muscles flex, "Remember him? He used to go here? And now he's the QB for the goddamn _Legion_."

"Come again? I didn't catch all your code words."

Nico glares at her half-heartedly, but he can already feel the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth while she sticks her tongue out at him over her mug. "The Legion. You know, that one team that our school is supposed to totally hate and also destroy in the game in March?"

"Oh _yeah_, those guys. Their QB is hot."

"Yeah, well, he's taken. By my _roommate_. Don't you see a problem with that?"

"Yeah, well, no, not really." She winks at him, a huge smile spreading across her face as she flicks her fingers at him. Sometimes, Nico sort of doesn't believe Drew's thought processes. He doesn't exactly smile back, and she stares at him, just a little, and then says: "Holy shit."

"What?" Nico looks around, expecting to see something on fire due to the fact that Drew and Piper's dorm suite, which they share with some other juniors he doesn't know, is pretty much a walk-in fire hazard, but when he doesn't see any random sparks, he looks back to find that she's still looking at him, twisting a piece of dark brown hair around her finger. "_What?_"

"I didn't even realize… holy shit, it's so obvious." She's not even paying attention to him now, instead looking at a point about three feet above his head. "How did I not… oh, _duh_, because you're a little bit emotionally retarded, that's why! That explains the night at the bar, when I was drunk – no wonder my attempts at seduction failed so badly."

"Look, Drew," he says, feeling more than a little bit alarmed, "what are you _talking_ about?"

Her smile shifts into something a little more knowing than Nico is comfortable with. "Well, because you're in love with Rachel. Duh. That's why you're acting like a jealous fifteen-year-old girl, you fucking dumbass."

Nico is aware that he's gaping, a lot. Soon enough, his brain starts to kick back in, and his mouth runs at about a million miles per hour. "No, you've got this – I'm not – _no_, Drew. I just – it's only because – he's their goddamn quarterback, you can't just – you've got to be kidding me, I –"

"Cool it, diAngelo. Your secret's safe with me." If anything, her smile just gets bigger and bigger, a grin of Cheshire Cat proportions, and it's kind of the most frightening thing that Nico's ever seen.

"There _isn't a secret_," he says, still wearing an expression of slowly dawning horror, and all she does is smile back. In response, he chucks a pillow at her; she threatens to "never give you coffee again, diAngelo" and soon enough both of them are laughing and throwing pillows and he thinks that the whole thing is forgotten.

In hindsight, that was too much to hope for.

* * *

It was only a matter of time until Nico snapped, really.

He knows it isn't fair, because honestly, Rachel hasn't actually done anything to him (_except go out with the quarterback from the rival team_ says the unfair part of him, but he tells that to _shut the hell up_), but it's three weeks until the big game and his cell phone is full of text messages from Drew saying _are you ever going to say anything diAngelo?_ and he just can't deal with this anymore.

So when Rachel stumbles in at one in the morning, drunk as hell and stottering, Nico looks up from his physics textbook and feels this weird sensation of anger and jealousy and want rising in his stomach. It only gets worse when Rachel – who definitely drank a few too many beers with That Asshole – trips and somehow lands on Nico, draping an arm around his neck.

"Hey, stranger," she drawls into Nico's ear, the tiniest bit of an accent coming through, "haven't seen you in a while, have I."

"No, not really," Nico manages, trying very hard to both steady Rachel and concentrate on the equations in front of him. _The universal law of gravitation states that_ –

"I think you're avoiding me, Nico," Rachel practically sings his name, her breath hot on Nico's neck.

"No," he says again, "not really," and he can feel the flush rising up the back of his neck, his hands starting to tremble just a little, and he puts the textbook down. _Of gravitation states that every object_ –

"Nico," Radhel says again, her voice long and loose, and Nico starts to tense up even as he takes more of Rachel's weight, "you don't ever talk to me anymore. Why don't you do that?"

And suddenly it's all just way too much – the crack in his tibia and Drew's texts and Greek history and Rachel's eyes that are so, so damn green that it hurts to look at them – and he just falls apart.

"Because," he says, and his voice is sharp, cracking out in the quiet darkness of their room, "you're with the fucking quarterback for the fucking _Legion_, Rachel, and still you just keep taking me out of here to buy me coffee and it's like you don't notice a damn thing and I don't even know why you a give a shit about me and I can't stop thinking about you, like what you'd say about my stupid football games or what is under those stupid shirts you're always wearing or how _godamn green_ your eyes are and –" He falters.

Rachel has broken away, staring at him, and the guilt crashes into Nico, makes him stumble back, some phantom pain running down his leg and his heart racing way too fast in his chest, but he still can't look away from her. Rachel just keeps looking at him, hurt and confusion written all over her face and a hand clutching the desk, and Newton's law keeps running through his head – _every object attracts every other object._

He goes to Bianca's single room. His sister is still awake, listening to some obscure indie band while she writes up a paper for law, and Nico sits down on the couch and faces the wall and tries to quiet the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. At two-thirty he finally falls asleep; he dreams of a voice whispering his name in his ear and wakes up over and over again.

* * *

"I heard Rachel and Percy broke up," Drew offers over coffee at the Starbucks down the street. The barista girl from when he met Grover smiles at him over one of the coffee roasters; he looks down at his cup of coffee.

"Oh," he says, still looking down, holding the cup in his hands. It was snowing a few minutes ago outside and he forgot his gloves when he went back to the room to get everything he needed for the afternoon. He and Rachel have carefully avoided each other since his outburst, going into their room in shifts; they're only ever around each other when they need to sleep, and sometimes in the middle of the night he shifts over, looks to his left and feels like he just got kicked in the ribs because it's like September all over again.

He sips his coffee.

"Enough." Drew slams her mug on the counter, glaring at him as he jumps, startled and trying to dodge the coffee slopping out of her cup. "You are going to go back to your room and _talk_, okay? I am done with this moping. Bianca probably is too – hell, I bet everyone we collectively know is tired of your bullshit and middle school drama and general asshattery, and I will not allow you to just sit on your ass and moan about how you fucked up."

"I can't." The words stumble out of his mouth before he's aware that he's saying them as he tries to avoid Drew's gaze.

"Yes, you damn well can, diAngelo." She keeps glaring at him, something sharp in her face as she _looks_ at him. "Go. _Fix _this." When he doesn't respond, her face softens, just a little. "Or try to, at least."

He bites his lip, frowning down at his coffee.

Then he stands up, grabbing his drink, his feet moving him out of the Starbucks and onto the snowy sidewalk outside. Somewhere behind him, he knows Drew is smiling to herself, but he doesn't care about that, isn't even _thinking_ about that as he sets off down the street. All he can do is let his feet move him back to the dorms and up the stairs and somehow he's ended up in front of his door, his hand just above the wood and he has no idea what he's about to do and he doesn't even care.

He wrenches open the door, and finds himself facing impassive silence. So he steels himself and begins.

"Look, I – okay, sometimes, people just… they, they… they just fuck up, you know?"

Rachel's mouth starts to open at this, but Nico keeps going, because he has to try, at least, "That night, I just… it was terrible, and I never should've said those things, and right now I just wish that I could take them back because I didn't mean them like I said them –"

"Nico," Rachel says, long and loose and he realizes that Rachel must have said it a couple of times, that Rachel has come closer to him and he can see every drawing etched on her arm, "Nico, it's – I mean, it's okay." Then she laughs, just a little, and it's sort of bitter and tired but mostly just a laugh, just joy and sound and Nico could listen to it again and again and _one more fucking time_— "I broke up with Percy, you know."

Nico must have made some noise, because then Rachel grins, slightly rueful but she looks almost happy in spite of herself. She chops at the air with her hand, and then meets Nico's gaze.

For a while, they just look at each other, because Nico realizes that he hasn't really seen Rachel in two weeks and that was a stupid idea, so he just sort of watches Rachel do some sort of smile where he bites his lip and really, Nico could never leave and he'd be all right.

Ten minutes later, Rachel says, "That game of yours is next Saturday, right? I think we'd better go," and smiles at him, and Nico smiles back.

* * *

It's the last minute of the game; Nico is leaning on Rachel for support while he hollers and cheers until his throat is hoarse and he can barely explain to Rachel what exactly the players on the field are doing. Mostly, Rachel has just sort of been smiling in a this-is-boring-but-I-will-pretend-to-be-interested sort of way, but at some point in this last quarter she's started cheering too as Grover leads the Spartans to touchdowns and field goals and quite sincerely kicks the Legion's collective ass. They both shout out the numbers on the scoreboard as they tick down – _tennineeightseven_ – and at some point Rachel just starts leaning into Nico and rests her head against Nico's shoulder – _sixfivefour_ – and Nico can feel the heat against his side – three – and Rachel is grinning up at him with her greengreen_green _eyes – _two_ – and as Grover is lifted up by the team and he feels Rachel against him – _one_ – the whole team looks to him, up in the stands, and _this_ is where Nico wants to stay – _time._

* * *

The sky is dark when they stumble back into the dorm room, voices hoarse and laughter ricocheting off the walls, and he fumbles for the light switch but doesn't quite make it. "Leave it," Rachel laughs in the semi-dark, peeling off her jacket and scarf and tossing them at the heater, so Nico does, balling up his own coat and throwing it next to hers. He checks his phone to find six new messages from Drew (_so have you dealt with that thing we talked about yet?_ and _get on it or I'll kill you because Rachel's prettier_ and_hurry up, you moron_) which he promptly ignores in favor of leaving his phone on the desk.

In a moment, the glory of the game wears off, leaving him bone-tired and barely standing, so Rachel helps him down onto the bed, still grinning madly with eyes glinting in the shadows by the wardrobe. She's still holding onto Nico's shoulder as she sits down next to him, cheerfully exclaiming over how they've won, and beaten Percy at that, and Nico doesn't shift away.

At some point in the darkness they shift and turn, lying on their sides on Nico's bed, curled up and legs tangling together. Rachel tucks her face against Nico's neck and her arms against Nico's chest and they fall asleep like that: contained, close.

Hours later in the darkness, Nico wakes up, his hands around Rachel's shoulders. For a time, he watches Rachel as her eyelids flutter and chest rises and falls.

He is still sleeping. He is still.

* * *

Here's how things go:

In the morning, (Nico tries to get out of bed without waking Rachel but his left arm is trapped, so he pushes Rachel a little and gets even more tangled up in response, and later they will go out for coffee and Nico will talk about the five good emperors and Rachel will swear at him in Ancient Greek when she gets bored and Drew and Bianca will text him with a _what were you _doing_last night_ and when Nico gets tired Rachel will sling an arm around his shoulders and help him walk home), everything – but nothing, really – has changed.

* * *

**This is the single most lengthy story I've ever written, clocking in at 5,500 words. Also, probably the least confusing one.**


End file.
